The Power (20 page)

'Possibly.' Tweed drank more water. 'Are you sug
gesting he has the organization to arrange for that massive
car bomb to be parked outside our building? He doesn't
even know where SIS headquarters are - were.'

That is a difficult one to answer,' Newman admitted. 'Incidentally, Butler and Nield followed you in here at separate intervals. Butler is sitting in a corner behind you
where he can survey the whole bar. Nield is chatting up
the barmaid...'

Leaning against the counter, Pete Nield was joking
with the fair-haired girl. He asked her a question when he felt he had established an easy relationship.

'I hear that Squire Gaunt is off on his travels again in
that floating palace of his. He could cross the Atlantic in that huge cabin cruiser.'

'Oh, I don't think he's done that. He flies to America.
You see, he likes to go off in her by himself to Europe.'

'A trip to jolly old Paris?' Nield suggested.

'Maybe. But he's been cruising up the Rhine. I heard
that when he was in here one night and he'd had rather a
lot to drink.'

'A nice chap, though,' Nield probed.

The girl paused polishing a glass. 'That depends on his
mood, between you and me. Sometimes he is and then
again he can cut you dead.'

'I hear he lives in a lovely manor on Bodmin Moor. Must
be peaceful out there.'

'Too lonely for me. I'd get the creeps ...'

The very courteous and able manager of the Metropole
met them in the hall as they returned. He spoke in a low
voice to Tweed.

'I thought you might like to know two Americans have
been enquiring about you, sir. Wanted to know how long
you were staying. I said I'd no idea.'

'Are they staying here?' Newman asked quickly.

'No. But they're in the bar at the moment.'

Think I'll pop in and take a look at them . ..'

Newman headed for the bar as the others waited for the lift. Two tall heavily built men were standing by the bar
counter with drinks in front of them. Both wore loud check
sports jackets and denims and had American style trench
coats folded over their arms. Newman ordered a Scotch.
The larger of the two men was standing next to Newman,
had dense black hair, thick brows which almost met across
the bridge of his broken nose.

'Your Scotch, Mr Newman,' said the barman, recog
nizing his customer. 'Thank you, sir,' he said as Newman
paid.

'Newman? Robert Newman, the nosy foreign corres
pondent?' the big American enquired in a bullying tone.

'I'm retired,' Newman replied, refusing to be provoked. 'So no longer nosy, as you put it.'

'Old habits die hard,' the American said aggressively.

His elbow toppled his own drink. Liquid spilt over the
counter and the barman hastily mopped up.

'Buddy,' the American went on, 'that was my whisky

you just knocked over. So what are you going to do about
it?'

'Buy you another,' Newman continued amiably. 'Give
this gentleman a fresh drink, please,' he said to the barman
and put more money on the counter.

'They said you were something else again at one time,'
the American sneered. 'Good thing you retired - seems
like you lost your guts.'

'Your friend has just collapsed.'

As the American jerked his head to his left where his
companion stood looking puzzled, Newman grabbed his
drink, walked out of the bar and up the stairs. The enemy
was moving in at very close quarters.

'I'm calling a council of war, Paula. In my suite. If you have
just stepped out of the bath, five minutes from now will
do.'

Paula put down the phone in her room on the second
floor. Tweed had sounded imperative, calm, determined. She had not just stepped out of the bath. She went back to the window, her lights off, watching in the dark the final incoming surge of the tide. In the moonlight the edges of the remaining sandbanks looked like filleted fish. Even as
she watched they were submerged. The water now
stretched from shore to shore and Porthilly Cove, which
had been a huge sand beach, was filled with water.

It was frightening, she thought, as she descended the
stairs - the unstoppable force of the sea. She made a similar
remark to Tweed as she entered his suite while Newman closed and locked the door.

'And that's what we're up against,' Tweed said, 'an
unstoppable force. Power in its most extreme and ruthless
form.'

His audience remained silent. They were all there -
Cardon, Butler and Nield, seated while Tweed stood in the

middle of the large room, the curtains closed behind him.
He looked at Newman.

'Tell them about your encounter in the bar downstairs.'

They listened while Newman related tersely what had
happened in the bar. He was inclined to play down the confrontation. Paula was surprised he had kept his tem
per and said so.

'His reaction was perfect,' Tweed told her. 'They were trying to start a fight, probably challenge him to come
outside with them. Supposing they had knives?'

'Why would two Americans pick on Bob?' she per
sisted.

The enemy is closing in on us. It's the moment I have
been waiting for. We are going to break
out. My crazy
idea as to who was behind all this murder and destruction
could be right.'

'And the enemy's identity?' Paula pressed on.

'Work it out for yourself. You have the same data I
have. List what has happened. From the beginning.'

'There was that horrible massacre at Tresillian Manor -
when I was nearly a victim,' she reminded him.

'Chief target - besides ourselves?' Tweed rapped out.

'Julius Amberg, Swiss banker from Zurich.'

'Now, go back a few days to my office in Park Crescent.
When Bob and Monica had an unexpected visitor.'

'Well, he left them a film and a tape recording. Copies,
he said. He took the originals with him.'

'You've missed something,' Tweed snapped. 'Newman gave us a detailed description of that visit by Joel Dyson.
What was inside his case?'

'Oh, I remember. Several lots of American clothes
...

'Which strongly suggests he had just flown in from the
States. Dyson spent most of his time operating over there
although he's British. Found there were much more profitable pickings on the other side of the Atlantic. Go on. Next event.'

'That massive bomb parked outside Park Crescent
which destroyed the whole building.'

'Just another bomb?' Tweed enquired.

'No. You told us Commander Crombie had said they'd
found relics of the trigger device - that it wasn't the IRA. A
more sophisticated device than he'd ever seen.'

'And,' Tweed reminded her, 'how many people know
where SIS headquarters were located? What sort of profession? What sort of organization could arrange for the
massacre at the manor which almost coincided with the
bomb outrage in London?'

'A pretty big one.'

'An international one,' Tweed added.

'I still don't think the massacre and the London bomb
are linked,' Paula said obstinately. 'There wasn't time.'

'What happened next?' Tweed continued.

'Celia Yeo, the servant girl I feel sure had signalled the
arrival of Amberg's guests, was thrown off High Tor.'

'And then?'

'We arrived here. Gaunt turns up with Jennie Blade.
While we're crossing to Rock - at Gaunt's suggestion - that powerboat tries to run us down. We check the house with
no name and find the signalling lamp used to send coded
messages you spotted from the cove. Then we find out the
house with no name belongs to Gaunt. Finally, that heli
copter appears to search for us.'

'Not finally yet,' Tweed observed. 'What happens when
we get back to the hotel this evening?'

'Oh, those two Americans who've been asking for you
try to incite Bob into a free-for-all.'

'Now go back a year or two. To Zurich.'

'I'm not with you . . .'

Tweed,' Newman intervened, 'is referring to when I persuaded Joel Dyson to hand to Julius Amberg the
compromising photos he'd taken of the banker - instead of
selling them to the press.'

'I'd forgotten that for the moment,' Paula admitted. 'I
do remember that Jim Corcoran at London Airport found
out that Dyson flew to Zurich after he'd left the film and
tape copies at Park Crescent. And
he'd just been in
America.'

'It begins to link up, doesn't it? Tweed summarized.

'Does it?' Paula frowned. 'I must be thick.'

'Not at all,' Tweed reassured her. 'It's simply that if I'm
right the truth is so awesome,
of such magnitude,
it is difficult to grasp. We are in real peril here - so we are
leaving tonight. Before dinner. We tell reception we've
been called away on urgent business. Philip, Pete, Harry -
pay your bills separately, including your rooms for
tonight.'

'I'd better go pack. Won't take me long,' Paula said.
'But where are we going?'

'There's a small pub hotel at a place called St Mawgan out in the country near Newquay, further west. Newman
and I stayed there overnight once when we were down here. I'll phone them from that infernal phone box. I'm
beginning to feel I live inside that box.'

Newman jumped up, a newspaper tucked under his arm.
'I am off to pack my things and check out of the Old
Custom House. I'll wait for you by the phone box.' He
waved the paper. 'Still nothing in the press about the
massacre on Bodmin Moor, which I find sinister. News is
all about the States and President March not yet agreeing to back the PM over the crises in Europe and the Middle
East. Without American co-operation we can't take strong
measures, can't take any measures ...'

'Hurry, everyone,' Tweed urged. 'We want to get out of
Padstow alive.'

13

President Bradford March sat sprawled in his swivel chair
behind the antique desk in the Oval Office. His stance was,
to say the least, inelegant. The chair was pushed well back
from the desk and his stockinged feet rested on the surface,
crossed at the ankles. He was looking out of the tall
Georgian windows at Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue. The view was fuzzy due to the grey drizzle still falling. He
turned back to face the only other occupant of the room, a
woman.